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By Peter I Leeson and Russell S. Sobel* key insight of econoimiics is the uIintendcd, often undesirable, Consequences of government activity. Although the idea that governient policy may create harmful secondary effects is well known, too often when policy makers craft policies designed to promote the public welfare they seem to ignore these effects. An example of this may be government provision of natural disaster relief Between 1990 and 2002, prosecutors in the United States convicted rore than 10,000 public officials ofcorruption-related crimes But the geographic distribution of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats was far from even. The United States as a whole averaged 4 corruption-related convictions per 100,000 residents. Mississippi, Florida, and South Dakota averaged 7.5 per 100,000 residents. And UtahArizona, and Nebraska had less than halt the US average.

Over the same period 599 natural …